The Conservative majority government has not wasted a day since it was elected because ministers no longer have to make it up as they go along, as they did in coalition, David Cameron has said after the first 80 days of his administration.
The prime minister said the government could travel quickly because it “helps to have one hand at the steering wheel”, rather than having to share the wheel with another party. He also likened the party’s manifesto to the Bible, saying ministers just had to refer to “the good book”.
Cameron, speaking at the end of a four-day tour of south-east Asia, is due to go on holiday next week, marking the end of the first phase of the administration.
He said he had reorganised the government, with Oliver Letwin, the cabinet office secretary, and Matt Hancock, the cabinet office minister, given new roles on policy and policy implementation.
The election of a majority single-party government has meant the dismantling across Whitehall of the key architecture of the coalition, including “the quad” – the group of four ministers to which most important issues were referred. The Liberal Democrats’ Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander used the quad as a means of negotiating policy with their chief Conservative counterparts: Cameron and the chancellor, George Osborne.
Letwin and, to a lesser extent, Hancock now fill the void and try to ensure Downing Street’s writ runs through Whitehall departments.
Cameron told reporters: “People all know if they’re not sure which approach to take, it’s all in the good book, the manifesto, rather than having to make it up as they go along.”
He denied his surprise election success had caught him off guard in terms of policy preparation: “We wrote a manifesto very much on the basis of what a Conservative majority government would do and we fought very hard for a Conservative majority government. We always thought one was possible, so people should not be too surprised when we got one we really knew what we wanted to do and how we wanted to do it.
“I think the first 80 days have shown a government that has got a very clear direction and purpose about delivering for working people, about building a genuinely one-nation country of opportunity and also demonstrating that Britain is back on the world stage with a growing economy, a falling deficit, meeting our pledges on both defence and aid, and able to stand up for British values and British interests around the world. And I don’t think we’ve wasted a day, frankly, in the last 80 days.”
He said the centrepiece of the opening part of his five-year government was the budget and the announcement of a “national living wage”, set to reach more than £9 for those aged over 25 by 2020. “I think that’s a really important reform.”
With Conservative ministers privately astonished and delighted by Labour’s political direction, he said: “We’ve made progress on things like childcare and reforming schools, because that is going to be vital to building opportunity, and we’re pleased that we’ve been able to make steps on the international stage as well, which is in Britain’s interests because we are a trading power, an international power, an engaged power, and the work that we’re doing for instance here in Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia is directly in Britain’s interests.”
He added: “It does help when we’ve got one person at the steering wheel driving in consistently the same direction.”
Cameron has admitted that although he had a friendly working relationship with Clegg the deals and transactions intrinsic to coalition were unattractive.
Largely unseen, Cameron has introduced a major change to Whitehall by introducing 10 new taskforces working across government departments to oversee the delivery of policy in key areas, including housing, immigration, extremism and childcare.
The move is similar to the setting up of a “delivery unit” by Tony Blair in 2001 to monitor the delivery of priority policies. This was abolished when the coalition government took office in 2010.
A report on the taskforces, less formal than ad hoc cabinet committees, was a central feature of the final cabinet meeting before the summer break, held at Chequers.
Taskforces have also been set up to oversee progress in the following areas: troubled families, exports, digital infrastructure, health and social care, “earn or learn” and foreign fighters returning to the UK from Syria and Iraq.
The committees will be chaired by cabinet or junior ministers, reporting to the prime minister and the cabinet regularly.
Cameron said: “It has helped being able to bring departments together into these implementation taskforces. Instead of having fiefdoms, perhaps run by a different party, you have got one party really working as a team so when it comes to things like improving our performance on immigration, you’ve got everyone, the Home Office, the education department, the Treasury, all pulling in the same direction.
“I think the role particularly people like Oliver Letwin and Matt Hancock are playing means there is a great sense of teamwork across the government.”
